Imperial Faction of China

The Imperial Faction was a reactionary political clique in late Qing dynasty of China. Towards the end of the 19th century, much of the Qing imperial court and other conservatives opposed the increasing calls for reform by statesmen like Li Hongzhang and later the Guangxu Emperor. The faction was led by Empress Dowager Cixi and prominent Manchu nobles, including Prince Duan. It managed to organize a successful coup against the Guangxu Emperor and his reformers in 1898 to prevent the Hundred Days Reform, but it gradually lost power to the conservative Beiyang clique in the early 1900s. The Imperial Faction effectively ceased to exist after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution toppled the Qing Dynasty.